Vending receptacle



March 14, 1939.

C. C. TOZER El AL VENDING RECEPTACLE Filed Feb. 15, 1937 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 1 INVENTOR CORNELIUS C. TOZER Eg WARD H. BER ER ATTORNEY UNITED STATES amiss PATENT OFFICE VENDING REC'EPTACLE Cornelius C. Tozer and Edward. H. Berger, Hawthorne, N. Y.

Application February 15, 1937, Serial No. 125,683

2 Claims.

This invention relates to displaying and dispensing apparatus, and more particularly to a heat insulated cabinet for displaying, heating and dispensing oil cans and the like.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a cabinet in which the goods are simultaneously displayed, heated and automatically dispensed.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a cabinet in which the goods are introduced at a single point of the cabinet, are then fed by gravity along a plurality of tracks and are finally discharged at a plurality of dispensing openings.

Other objects, and the manner in which the same are attained, will appear from the fol1owing description.

In the drawings affixed to the specification and forming part thereof one embodiment of our in- 2Q vention is shown diagrammatically by way of example.

In the drawings,

Fig. l is a perspective view of the entire apparatus;

Fig. 2 is a vertical cross section taken along the line Z2 indicated in Fig. 4.;

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a detail showing the detention and release mechanism; while Fig. 4 is a vertical cross section taken along the line 4-4 indicated in Fig. 2.

Referring now to the drawings, the apparatus comprises frame work which is composed of the legs I, a top 2, and shelves 3 and 5, which may be provided with side supporting angle-irons 6, and end sup-porting angle irons l. The sides of the frame work may be partly covered with sheetmetal as indicated at 8.

The novel cabinet is composed of three parts.

The enclosed uppermost compartment is situated between the top 2 and shelf 3, the compartment offering ample space for displaying quite a number of the goods to be displayed, heated and dispensed, such as e. g. cans of oil as indicated at 9. Access to this compartment is obtained by a glass door H], which is hinged toframe l! by means of hinges 2, a knob l3 being provided for the opening of door It. The door ll) may be duplicated on the rear side of the cabinet. I

The lower enclosed compartment is situated between shelves 3 and i, and is provided with a pane of glass It, which is fixed in place by means of a removable recess strip I 5. This compartment contains three individual track arrangements, each of which comprises supporting rods it, on which the cans 9 roll by gravity, guiderails l1, designed to hold the cans in place while being fed along the tracks, and cradles l8, ar-

ranged for supporting rods l5 and rails IT. The lower cradles H? are suspended by brackets 19. 5'

The upper track is located in the center of the cabinet, running from one end of the cabinet to the other and sloping downwardly toward the end in which the discharge opening is provided. The two lower tracks are placed along- 10 side of each other, each lower track comprising two track portions, the upper of which slopes in the same direction as does the single, uppermost track, while the lower track portion slopes in a direction opposite to that of the upper portion, in order to permit cans rolling down the upper track portion to drop on the lower portion and return to the same end of the cabinet at which they were fed to the upper track portion.

The uppermost track as well as the two lower track arrangements all are loaded with cans through a single door 20, which is hinged at 2|, and supplied with a knob 22. Each of the three individual track arrangements dispenses through separate doors 23, provided with hinges 24 and 25 knobs 25. These doors control the release and detention'mechanisms for the cans 9.

Referring now to Fig. 3, the release .and detention mechanism comprises an arm 26, mounted on or integral with the door 23, lever junction 21, lever 28 provided with a slot 39, guided by a pin-brace 29 attached to the cradle support l8, and secured to a slide-board or other suitable frame work 3|. Attached to this board 3! are flaps 33 and 34. Flap 33 slides between 35 the cradle support l8 and a guiding brace 35. Flap 34 slides between guiding braces 36 attached to frame H. The board 3| slides upon supports 31 and is guided by pins 38.

The operation of the release and detention 40 mechanism according to Fig. 3 is as follows. When the door 23, is in a closed position, the flap 33 is perpendicular to the track and is supported by cradle support 18, thus retaining the cans 9. When the door 23 is opened, the lever 28 draws the sliding board 3| forward, withdrawing flap 33 sufliciently far to permit of a can 9 rolling over it, fiap 34 sliding to a vertical position behind the first can, and being braced by guide brace 36, flap 34 thus will retain the fol lowing cans in a manner such that one and only one can may be dispensed at a time. When the door 23 is closed the reverse operation takes place, returning flap 33 into its vertical position,

and receding flap 34 so as to allow the next can to roll over it until it is stopped by flap 33.

Any can rolling through door 23 drops into a catch receptacle 39, secured to the end of the cabinet.

The third and lowermost part of the cabinet is an open shelf 5.

The top 2 of the cabinet is provided with standards 40, adapted to hold a display sign 4|.

The center compartment of the cabinet is so constructed that it may be lined with insulation 52 on top, bottom, ends and sides with the exception of the side sections provided with glass panes [4. The glass section may be insulated by super-posing another pane of glass 43 on glass pane M, the two super-posed panes being separated from each other by an air-chamber 44, serving as an insulator.

The glass pane 43 is secured in place by removable channelled strips #5.

The upper compartment is lighted by one or several bulbs 46, provided on each side of the cabinet and arranged in the recessed angle of shelf 3 so as to give an indirect lighting effect.

The center compartment is supp-lied with bulbs 41, arranged so as to both light the compartment and the cans contained therein, and to heat the contents of the cans, e. g. oil contained therein.

Sockets 48 are provided for heating units and are located at each end of the cabinet for the purpose of supplying additional heat if and when required. These sockets are strategically located in that the one at the left hand end or loading end is arranged between the first two cans to be dispensed, While the one at the other end is located below the first can to be released from the upper track.

The track arrangements are provided with rods rather than fiat members in order to reduce friction to a minimum so as to obtain the highest degree of gravity efliciency.

We wish it to be understood that we do not desire to be limited to the exact details of construction shown and described for obvious modifications will occur to a man skilled in the art.

We claim:

1. An apparatus for displaying anddispensing package merchandise comprising a cabinet having package removal openings, a plurality of tracks supported in the cabinet in inclined position and terminating at their lower ends at said openings, a door for each opening, a common access opening for loading said tracks, and means for each track for successively dispensing the packages thereon operable by movement of the door, each said'means comprising a pair of flaps carried by the cabinet adjacent the track for movement from a vertical position obstructing passage of articles along the track to a nonobstructing depressed position, said flaps being disposed in spaced relation along the track, the front flap being vertical and the rear flap being depressed when the door is closed, and leverage mechanism operatively connecting the door and flaps whereby opening of the door depresses the front flap and elevates the rear flap.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, having said tracks beingdisposed in a twin-track arrangement, including two superimposed tracks sloping in opposite directions, the upper track portion being shorter than. the lower portion so as to permit said goods to drop from the upper on to the lower track portion.

CORNELIUS C. TOZER. EDWARD H. BERGER. 

